News of the Western Belize Recreational Area, about 500 square miles of waterfalls, caves, Mayan ruins and pyramids, Belize Alps, foothills, ranches and farms, tourist accomodations of all types and description, tours and expeditions for vacationers and visitors. Even a small growing expatriate retirement group of people from different countries. In Belize, this is where it is happening, all the things that are fun and even serious, with a climate of ETERNAL SPRING.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Vacuum packed leaf lettuce experiment in Belize conditions.

Vacuum packed lettuce experiment. Well we tried the vacuum packing of loose lettuce leaves. Last week the market had no lettuce at all. Today the market stalls were loaded with lettuce. Including head lettuce from Mexico and leaf lettuce from local producers. I checked the leaf lettuce and it takes four lettuce to make a pound, which retails for $2.50 Bz a pound. There was no interest in the plastic bag vacuum packed lettuce. The regular leaf lettuce lasts for two days on the stalls, before excessive wilting and this is right now in our cold season. We will see what happens with our vacuum packed lettuce in plastic. We are supposed to get two or three weeks for them in open storage in the market. Initial indications are; there is no market for vacuum packed lettuce, even though it preserves fresher and longer. We will have to go back to the drawing board on lettuce growing production and selling and refigure production and costs. What is hurting local production is the importation of lettuce from Mexico.